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Plextor have always had a knack of making good cd burners, but they really have hit the nail on the head with the 12/10/32A. It is the fastest recorder I have ever seen, burning a whole cd in about 4.5 minutes, which compared to my old Iomega that took 19 minutes, is very impressive. It is very solidly made, unlike the flimsy cheap ones you can unfortunately buy by mistake, and the nero software provided, although not the best, is certtainly easy to use. Another good thing is its ability to back up games. I have bought 4 games, and due to them always being borrowed and moved, they get scratched and dont work. If you use clone cd with the new 1.2 firmware you can back up any cd you wish, which is very useful and you wont get any failures due to the burn proof software included. Only bad thing is the price. It varies, but the cheapest I've seen it for is £160. Not terrible, but not cheap, but its worth every penny. I thoroughly reccommend it!

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What makes the Plextor PlexWriter 12/10/32A so remarkable is that it not only sets new standards for CD rewrite (10x) and write (12x) speeds, it raises the bar of CD-creation reliability to unprecedented heights. Its £180 estimated price might be high, but you'll more than make up for it with the savings of having no ruined discs. CD-R drives must create audio and data CDs in a continuous write operation, where even a momentary interruption will result in a spoiled CD. Thanks to its Burn-Proof technology, however, the PlexWriter is able to recover from interruptions and resume writing exactly where it left off. This means that you can still use your computer while you burn CDs, knowing that the activity of other programs won't cause the write process to fail. It also means that you can copy files to a CD at 12x, even if the source drive can't sustain such a high continuous data rate. I created an audio CD from MP3 files on a network drive - a source that most CD writers would find too slow at any speed. The PlexWriter finished creating a full disc, despite frequent interruptions, in less than 10 minutes. I tested the IDE drive and it got a WinMark 99 score of 1,080, a read speed that is at the high end for CD-RW drives. It took 6 minutes and 36 seconds to copy a full CD to a CD-R disc, and only 4 minutes and 40 seconds to copy 300MB of data from the hard drive to a CD-RW. Plextor includes a decent software bundle, including Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4, and its own Plextor Manager 2000 for disc copying, audio-CD creation, and digital audio extraction. Add in Plextor's reputation for quality, and the conclusion is superb. If you want a high-performance CD-RW drive with top-shelf CD-creation reliability, the PlexWriter 12/10/32A is the one to get.

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So the Plextor 12/10/32. Let me say that this is the first and only writer I have had, and is probably the last. This isn't only heavily built, but has such a performance, the competition are only just catching up! So lets go through the writer: Features You may be curious to know what 12/10/32 means, here you are: 12 - means the writer can write at a maximum speed of 12x, which is a full CD-R in under 6 minutes (I timed it)!! The discs are CD-R (write once only) 650Mb, 74min, you can get 700Mb which work fine on this writer too. 10 - means the writer can write on CD-RW discs, at 10x, just under 12minutes. You can write over and over with these discs. 32 - means the writer can read (CD/CD-R/CD-RW) discs at 32x, which isn't too bad, the highest you can get is 52x. It even read a disc which was cracked in the middle of the silver ring (the bit which is silver). Headphone socket: plug your headphones in when listening to a audio CD. Volume control: for headphone volume control. The Rear You connect with IDE cable, there are two audio outputs, (analogue and digital). And the jumper selection: Set to master if on a motherboard channel on its own, OR set the other CD-Rom to slave when the CD writer is on the same channel as the CD-ROM drive, if applicable. In The Box YOU GET: The drive Screws Two discs; CD-R and CD-RW Plextor brand Large manual Audio cable Ribbon (IDE) cable CD-ROM install disc, including 'WinOn CD' program. That's about it. What About Performance? Using the WinOn CD program you can create, copy, or back up any data. You can copy from another CD-ROM, add data onto the CD-R, create audio tracks as an audio CD. These loads of features in the program and are fairly easy to use. The writer is an excellent choice for almost anyone. I have been able to create CDs in a matter of minutes. Though not a ll discs are compatible with the high speed (at first there was a shortage of 12x discs when I bought it!) and the fact that it write on CD-RWs at 10x is amazing. I have seen writers before and none have come with this speed. The competition are just about catching up now!! Build? Oh yeah, its a rock solid writer. The disc tray slowly recoils out, and isn't wobbly like cheaper readers. The front is equally strong, and could take a battering. Price? Okay, its not the cheapest writer around, but its not far off. I got mine for £180! At a computer fair, and its worked every day perfect. So in my view its a great buy, nothing can match it for speed. Burn Proof? This is the icing on the cake. This is a system which is working all the time. You have 2Mb buffer inside the machine, and when it is empty the writer stops at the exact point where the info stopped. So when the info comes through and fills the buffer, the writer begins again. It has never ruined a disc, and never will. I've played games while it writing, and as long as the PC doesn't crash it'll never ruin (quite cheap now) CDs. What more can I say, a perfect writer from Plextor.

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Today I will tell you about the Plexwriter 12/10/32. The main difference between the SCSI version is the IDE has a faster CDRW writer at 10x verses the SCSI at 4x. Now the SCSI has a built in 4MB of buffer memory and the IDE has only 2MB. The transfer rate is faster on the SCSI but the IDE has BURN-Proof installed and the SCSI does not. The SCSI needs an SCSI card to be used, while the IDE will more than likely connect on the same cable as your hard drive. Both units can use CloneCD. Due to my good friends, I have seen and used both models, myself I cannot tell any difference between them as far as performance. Both of them write rather fast without any problems. CD Copies Your can legally make a copy of your own CDs, so if something should happen to the copy, you will always have the original. You cannot sell or even give a copy to anyone, the copies are for your personal use only. CloneCD This program will allow you to copy your CDs and make an exact copy of the original. Not all CR writers will work with CloneCD. If your CD writer will work with CloneCD, it will make an exact copy of almost every CD even if it is copy protected. (Almost meaning there is a few it may not copy because of the copy protection.) CloneCD is shareware, so download it free and give it a try, there are some limitations with the shareware version. Be sure to check out the listings of what CD writers will work with CloneCD. The PlexWriter 12/10/32 works great with CloneCD. BURN-Proof BURN-Proof means Buffer-Under-Run Proof. BURN-Proof is hardware and firmware that is resident on the drive control electronics on the CD Writer. Your CD writer has to be made for the BURN-Proof, you cannot just add it. This helps protect you from experiencing Buffer-Under-Run Errors. I look for many manufactures to use the BURN-Proof, it is very effective. The Plexwriter 12/10/3 2A This fast CD writer can write your CDRs at a nice speed of 12x. It will write and rewrite your CDRWs at a fast speed of 10x and read all your CDs at a nice speed of 32x. IDE, EIDE and ATAPI Interface (PIO Mode-4) Access time is 150 ms. Supports Digital Audio Output with a SPDIF output. It will Over-Burn 74 minute and 80 minute CDs. It writes in CD-ROM Modes 1 and 2, CD-DA, CD-XA Form 1 and 2, CD-I, Photo CD, CD-ROM Mixed Mode, Video CD and CD-Text. It is Compatible with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 and works with Windows ME. CD Text The Plexwriter 12/10/32 is capable of reading and writing CD Text information. There is extra information on audio CDs like the name of it, the artist and the name of all the songs. A lot of the older CD writers could not write that information over. If you use Nero to write your Mp3 files to audio files, you can have Nero automatically name the songs as listed on the MP 3 file name. You can also list them manually and rename them if you wish. What you get The Plexwriter 12/10/32 IDE CD Writer One blank CDR disk and one blank CDRW disk Mounting Screws One IDE cable Adaptec's Easy CD Creator software PlextorManager 2000 suite of utilities Overall This beauty at one time cost $399 and now can be found for as low as $179. Plextor now has a 16x and 20x CD writer on the market but they are high. With the 12x you can copy a 74-minute CD in 6 to 7 minutes, with the 16x or 20x you will only cut about 1 or 2 minutes writing time off. Don’t settle for those $99 CD writers, it is worth the extra $80 to go with this model. For those of you who have an older model you will probably agree, it is at a bargain price. I personally do not like Adaptec's Easy CD Creator that came with it, I highly recommend Nero for all your CD writing. I mig ht also include CloneCD, it is a very nice program for making exact duplicates.

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This is an excellent value product. Not only does it record CD's in next to no time, it is a fast CD drive and very fast re-writer into the bargain. The software that comes with this drive is not one that I had come across before CeQuadrat Win On CD. But it is very easy to use and seems to be extremely powerful. I have not investigated a lot of the features yet but it seems to do more than my old adaptec software. Installation of the drive was very simple, in fact it could not be a lot simpler, just plug it into the EIDE bus and away you go. The best thing about a drive this fast is that it was the only one on the market that was this fast and was still available for EIDE. No messing about with SCSI cards. I have had one of these for about six months now and have been using it frequently with absolutely no problems. I could not recommend this fast reasonable reliable drive any higher. Plus for those of you who have spent lots of time in the past throwing away CD's that did not record properly, thar should all be in teh past now with the burnproof software that comes with it. I do not think I have had any CD's go wrong on me yet! considering I usually burn about 10 a week, that should be a good enough test for anybody.

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What an impressive piece of kit this is. Having fitted it myself (piece of cake following the step by step instructions supplied) I installed the software and off we went. No problems at all - ok, lets give this thing a real test, and I'm not talking about anything as easy as buffer under-run! I set it up for a packet copy of audio; let it get into track 8 then induced a warm re-boot! Once the tower had settled down again I started up the Plexwriter and blow me - it took up exactly where it had left off - I freely admit I was gobsmacked, and very, very impressed. Once completed I tested the disc and it was just fine. I rate this as an exceptional piece of kit.

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Hello again heres another Product that I have recently purchased and what a gadget it is the Plextor 16xW 10xRW 40xread Burnproof writer. I have purchased this writer over 24 hours ago and i havent stopped grinning since. It is an amazing product for £195 it comes complete with ide cable and audio cables this drive has a connection for spdif audio if your sound card accepts it digital audio and standard audio too.The software is 4 disks with the manual on 1disk as well as 3 diffrent assorted writing utilities (of which i preffer to use CloneCD NOT INCLUDED). The drive does prefer its own ide socket but it can still be shared with no problems as mine shares my dvd drive and I have had no problems so far but you must leave it as the master drive (dont adjust jumper on the back of drive). This drive is exceptionally fast at recording but the down side is there is not much software around that takes to 16 speed writers Disc Juggler accepts 14 speed clonecd accepts 12 speed but hey 4 mins a disc still makes me smile and the really good news is I surf the net and copy a disc with out the worry that its gonna chuck out anymore because they will not. Believe me I have tried to make the drive chuck a disc out but it wont do it it just waits until you are finished and it starts again where it left off. My advise would be if you are in the market for a writer this is the one to go for. Still not convinced then READ ON........... If and i mean if you get any problems at all then you have a 1 year in your home repair or replace guarantee its exellent ring them and they will come to your home and either fix it or replace it no waiting for return drives etc you dont even have to go out of your house. You really cant go wrong with this drive and its pretty future proof too.

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The Plexwriter 12/10/32A is, at the time of writing this review, one of the fastest and most reliable CD writers on the market. A quick tour around PC World will tell you it is more expensive than other writers (typically, my local PC World don't stock the Plextor) but the extra investment is well worth it. You can buy this unit for just under £200 including VAT from Jungle.com. For this price you get: - the 12/10/32 CD-R/W Unit - CD recording software: WinOnCD, Packet CD & BackMeUp - Plextor utility software (Plextools) - Instruction manual - Audio cable, mounting screws, E-IDE cable - 1 blank CD-R & i blank CD-R/W As the name implies, the Plexwriter writes at 12 speed, re-writes at 10 speed and reads at 32 speed. This means you can write to a 650MB CD in about 5 minutes, or re-write in about 7 minutes. That's fast, believe me! The Plexwriter includes a 2MB data buffer with "burn-proof" technology. This means that if data is sent too quickly to the device, it senses if the buffer is about to be all used up and pauses the recording, and by avoiding such "buffer under-runs", results in far fewer wasted CD's. In fact, I have had a 100% success rate so far! The build quality of the unit is very good. The tray is solid and eject mechanism smooth. I was very re-assured by the excellent warranty, which was 12 months with on-site collection and return service. The instruction manual was reasonable and I found the installation procedure very straightforward. My one criticism would be that the clarity of the installation instructions could be improved. It's fine if you're used to wipping the case off your PC and installing new hardware, but for computer novices, the manual is a touch presumptious. As for the bundled software, it all installed very easily with no problems. Of the three packages, I have only used the WinOnCD, so will restrict my observat ions to that. I am sure there may be better packages on the market and I would advise you to stick to what you know and trust, but I have been pretty impressed by WinOnCD. It comes with a very clear manual in .pdf format. Also, for the novice, it has a very useful Wizard mode that takes you through each step of the process until you feel comfortable using the software without the wizard. In summary, a great prduct, I would highly recommend it.

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Yes I agree this is the best CD RW device which i have come across to date. It burns relilable at 12x onto unbranded disks, and onto to CDRW's at 10x speed, but alas for me this is limited to 4x speed as the majority of my CDRW disks are old. This unit does however need a fast processor and harddisk combination, and the computer to be defragged regularly, as even though it does have the burn proof technology (licenced from sanyo) which is meant to prevent buffer under-runs. it doesnt always do so, especially if you have loads of stuff on your drives and they are fragmented. I have experienced a buffer level falling continually to zero, and a coaster being burnt, but a defrag sorted this out, and it was back up to 12x speed writing !

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This CD RW is the dogs BOL###KS. It writes at a blistering speed of 12x, rewrites at up to 10x and will read disks at up to 32x, making it one of the quickest drives on the market. It also features the burn proof technology which means that it will stop writing if it thinks a buffer underun is going to occur therefore preventing you from setting up a coaster factory. I am successfully burning 80min CD disks bought unbranded from a computer fair for just £30 per 100 with no problems. I will however say that the drive DOES like to be on its own IDE channel.

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A few years ago the world was amazed with the idea of copying a compact disc on your home computer. Since then, a barrage of companies have jumped on the band wagon and produced their own CD recording drive. Growing from the turtle-like 1x to blazing fast 12x SCSI recorders, consumers have experienced every speed possible in these optical storage units. Until last week, a 12x write speed (1.8 Mbps) was only accessible by a CDRW that utilized the SCSI interface. Opening a new market, Plextor, a well known manufacturer of CDRW drives, introduced the world's first 12x CDRW that takes advantage of the IDE connection. The drive is virtually the same as Plextor's original 12x SCSI CDRW, only with an IDE connector. Lets see what the drive offers... E-IDE (ATAPI-4) interface 12X CD-R, 10X CD-RW, 32X max CD-ROM 150ms Average Random Access 2 MB Buffer Capable of Digital Audio Extraction at 24X max Burn-Proof technology eliminates buffer underrun errors in fast write modes Windows 95/98/2000 and NT4.0 One of the features that sticks out from other drives is the "Burn-Proof" technology that guarantees a perfectly burned CD every time the drive is used. The main problem that this new tech fixes are buffer underrun errors that occur when the source can't send data to the recorder at high speeds (i.e. at 12x). Although this error does not occur that often with 8x drives, moving up to 12x requires this safety net because people may be copying from slow CDROM drives or slow hard drives. Aside from this new feature, everything else on the drive is standard relative to most optical drives. The recorder works at 32x maximum read speed and a very speedy 10x (1.6 Mbps) re-write speed. With a 2 MB Buffer and 150 ms seek time, it will serve as a decent drive from a non-recording point of view. There is only one way to show the audacity of this drive and that is to show how fast it burns. Plextor promises a 6 mi nute burn for a packed 650 MB CD. Can they honor their promises? Indeed they can. I decided to backup a few of my games onto a CD. Measuring up to 645 MB, I used Adaptec's Easy CD Creator and began making the CD. After 5 minutes and 45 seconds, the flawless disc was done. The numbers don't lie folks...that's an amazing burn. However appealing the sub six minute burn time is, don't be fooled by it's glamour. The drive is very taxing on system resources and doesn't allow for much other multi-tasking to occur during the burn. When running the CD Tach 99 test, the CPU utilization went up to 43 percent. In addition to this, I put the drive in an Athlon 800 system that had 384 MB of PC133 SDRAM and was only running Explorer at the time, nothing else. When just running explorer, the system resources were up to 98 percent free. When performing a burn at 12x, the system resources dropped down to 63 percent. That leaves a good deal of room for other items, but multi-tasking becomes a slow and arduous process. Aside from the resource hog that the drive is, it performed amazingly well. I burned eleven CDs ranging from data to music, all at 12x and never once encountered a problem or a bad disc. This is an excellent drive if you're willing to surpass one more barrier - the price. Plextor has given this unit an MSRP of £229.99 and has began shipping them to resellers for hopeful price breaks. In the end, if you want the best possible IDE CDRW drive and don't care about money, this is the one to get. However, if money is a factor, you may want to look into Plextor's 8x drive right here. Overall, I give the drive an eight of ten with the two point loss coming from the price and system taxation.